


The Cavewalker

by SilenceIsGolden15



Series: Voltron Oneshots [64]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood and Injury, Cave-In, Caves, Gen, Horror, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Legends, Magic, Monsters, Near Death Experiences, Reckless Keith (Voltron), Suspense, Worried Shiro (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:54:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27318088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilenceIsGolden15/pseuds/SilenceIsGolden15
Summary: Keith's impatience usually gets him hurt. This time it just so happens to be at the claws of an otherworldly spirit. Oops
Relationships: Keith & Shiro (Voltron)
Series: Voltron Oneshots [64]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/979428
Comments: 13
Kudos: 161





	The Cavewalker

**Author's Note:**

> Ok I got the idea for this fic YESTERDAY and have been writing frantically ever since so this might not be my best fic ever but by god you're gonna get a spooky fic this year HAPPY HALLOWEEN

There were a surprising number of caves around the Garrison. The cliffs and canyons had been carved out by an ancient river, which inevitably created caverns, too. Keith had spent his early childhood exploring the ones within walking distance of his house, both with adult supervision and without, and after leaving the Garrison he must have prowled through dozens of them in his search for the Blue Lion. He was no Guardian of Earth, but he had more of a passing familiarity with being underground. 

But this… this was not a cave. This was a  _ maw.  _

“It looks like a portal to hell,” Lance blurted out with a full body shudder. Hunk was staring at the entrance in obvious terror. Pidge was trying to put on a brave face, but she was still standing half behind Hunk with a wary look on her face. Even Shiro seemed a bit perturbed, and Keith couldn’t blame any of them. 

The cave entrance was pitch black, the floor only visible for a few feet before being consumed by the shadows, the stone an old, rusty red color which reminded Keith, perhaps morbidly, of dried blood. But the freakiest thing wasn’t even the cave itself; that honor went to the ruins. 

Surrounding the entrance in a gentle half circle was a crumbling wall of dull green rock. When it was intact it could’ve reached all the way to the top of the entrance, if the carved pillars on either side were any indication, and there didn’t seem to be a gate or door anywhere in it. 

“Looks like they were trying to keep something out,” said Pidge, sounding half curious and half afraid. 

“Or keep something in,” Hunk squeaked. 

Allura and Coran didn’t seem bothered. The Princess looked exasperated, if anything, and Coran was as chipper as ever. 

“You Earthlings,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “You’re so superstitious.”

“Almost as much as the Ahkteurians themselves,” added Coran, adjusting the lapels of his jacket. Everyone else was in their armor, even Allura, but he always insisted on maintaining his aesthetic. “Their culture was steeped in the belief in otherworldly spirits haunting them-- they had thousands of legends of various creatures, and thousands more telling how to protect yourself from them. Fascinating, truly.”

Well, that would explain the symbol carved into the rock wall. A circle, a diamond with rounded edges inside of it, and an upside-down triangle in the center. The top edge was right at the level where the wall was crumbling-- a few more inches of decay would see the symbol start to break down. 

Shiro tilted his head. “Have you been here before?” he asked. “Before the Empire?”

“Oh, Ancestors no. The Ahkteurian civilization died thousands of years before I was even born! I studied them extensively in school, though-- allow me to demonstrate!” 

Allura groaned in a very un-regal way as Coran approached one of the pillars, the rest of the Paladins tagging along behind. “Coran, please, do we really have time for another translation demonstration?”

“Of course we do!” Coran answered in a huff. “Now, listen here, Paladins.”

Keith held back a sigh of impatience and studied the wall in front of him. It was only about ten feet to the top of the symbol, an easy jump with his jet pack. 

“This symbol here, well, it’s been a few years, ten thousand, in fact, but this mark is the indicator of past tense. You see how it’s repeated several times, which essentially means  _ long, long ago.  _ Now, the Ahkteurians wrote from the bottom up, so the next hieroglyph is the one above it-- that’s the symbol for  _ cave _ , which would be self explanatory, I hope.” 

Yeah, no. With a single jet pack burst he got high enough to grab onto the top of the wall. Another burst got him up and almost over, though he paused for a moment once perched to take another look around. 

Even up this close, Keith couldn’t see a thing within the cave. His visor lit up, outlining a couple of long stalactites dangling from the ceiling like fangs, but other than that there was only shadow. He glanced back over his shoulder. 

Allura was waiting for the others with an annoyed look on her face-- it wouldn’t be long before she insisted they all get back to work. The others were still crowded around Coran as he squinted at the pillar. 

“This sign here is for movement: walking, running, flying, you understand. But the symbol is only repeated once, you see, which implies slow movement. All together, this sentence-- denoted by this horizontal line-- would read ‘Long ago, there was one who traveled slowly through the caves’, or more concisely, ‘Long ago, there was a cave walker’.” 

Keith’s skin itched, and without further ado he pushed off the edge of the wall, using his jet pack to slow his descent to the cave floor. He could still hear the others’ chatter in his ears as his visor adjusted to the lower light. 

“I do not like the sound of that,” declared Hunk in a shaky voice. “It’s so ominous!”

One of the Paladins’ mics picked up Coran’s answer. “Well, it could also be translated as cavern strider, or earth traveler, or even hole stroller, if you really wanted.”

Lance snickered, but before any of them had to hear whatever terrible joke he’d just thought of, Allura spoke up again. 

“Paladins, please, we need to be getting back to work. Day cycles don’t last forever, and we have much to do.”

_ You can say that again.  _ Keith wandered forward a few steps, still not seeing much besides rock, rock, and more rock. According to their intel, this cave was supposedly a rich source of a certain metal used in Altean steel. The site had been protected being Alfor’s day, but Allura had decided that their current need was more important, so they’d all piled into Yellow for a day of mining. 

He wasn’t really looking forward to that part, but at least he’d have something to do besides stand around listening to Coran talk. 

“The Princess is right,” said Shiro, much to Keith’s relief. “Let’s get moving. Hunk, why don’t you go get Yellow over here? We’re going to have to bring this wall down.”

“Ten-four,” Hunk answered, and there was a momentary pause. Keith pressed even further into the cave; the material they were looking for was supposed to be a soft, glowing green, which in the darkness shouldn’t be difficult to find, right? 

“Hey, Keith, where did you go?” Pidge’s voice was ever so slightly staticky, so Keith reluctantly paused in his walk towards the back of the cave room. 

“I’m inside already, just taking a look around. Don’t see any of that glowy metal yet.”

“Be careful,” said Shiro immediately, like a reflex. “Stand clear of the entrance, Hunk is going to be knocking it down in a few minutes.”

“Got it.” So far he hadn’t seen anything of note. The shape of the room was changing, narrowing into a single corridor at the back that was about Keith’s height and about ten feet across. When the light from the entrance finally gave out, he switched on the light attached to his helmet and peered down the path. The hallway was just as dark as the rest of the place was, but he could still make out that the floor was slanting downwards, curling in on itself in a tight spiral as it descended ever lower beneath the surface. 

“Pidge, remind me of how deep this stuff is supposed to be?” 

“Hold on, let me check.” 

The whole cavern gave a tiny tremor as the Yellow Lion landed nearby. Dust and clumps of earth rained down from the ceiling, but Keith was too busy listening to Pidge to notice them. 

“Database says about four hundred feet down. Lance is getting Blue so we can get a sonic map of the cave system.”

Keith was already heading down the spiraling passage. “I’ll go scout ahead.”

“That’s not strictly necessary,” Pidge said, her voice staticking more as he descended. “You should probably wait for the map.”

“And listen to Coran ramble on about an extinct civilization? No thanks.”

She laughed a little. “Fair enough. Are you clear of the entrance?”

“Yup.”

“Alright, Hunk, you’re clear.”

_ Boom.  _ The stone walls shuddered as the Yellow Lion slammed into the ruins at the entrance. There was no rain of dirt this time, and just as the second impact rocked through the cave Keith stepped out of the spiral hall and into another room. This one wasn’t large, perhaps the same dimensions as one of their bunks in the Castle, both the floor and ceiling crowded with growing stalac/stalagmites. Three more corridors led out of the room. 

_ Boom.  _ This one was followed by several more impacts, possibly from the wall as it crumbled. Keith was almost across the room to the corridor directly opposite the first when a staticky cry of alarm sounded in his ears. 

The words were patchy, and all Keith could make out was “Watch… pillar!” 

It sounded like thunder rolling overhead, but there was no gradual crescendo to it-- the noise was instant and deafening, like a building collapsing on top of him. Keith instinctively hit the dirt, summoning his shield over his head almost as an afterthought, bracing for pain. 

Despite the ungodly noise, he felt no impacts. The floor beneath him trembled, and the roar of falling rock seemed to go on forever, but by some stroke of luck nothing fell on him. 

Eventually the noise faded out and the shaking stopped. Keith carefully opened his eyes (having squeezed them shut at some point) and was relieved to find that the room he was in hadn’t collapsed around him. 

The comms staticked and clicked in his ear, only a few scraps of words making it through. After a slow breath to calm the surge of adrenaline, Keith stood up again and went back towards the spiral corridor, which from where he stood seemed unharmed. 

Unfortunately, that view didn’t tell the full story. 

“Uh, guys?” he said into his comms, hoping they could still hear him. “We have a problem.”

Shiro answered immediately, voice only slightly garbled. “Keith! Are you ok?”

“Ears are ringing, but other than that, yeah. What happened?”

“One of the pillars crumbled and the whole entrance collapsed. Where are you?”

“Just beneath it, in another room.” He stared at the boulders that now filled the spiral corridor. He should probably be grateful that the whole thing hadn’t come down on his head, but all he could think about was the next few hours of sitting still, waiting for the others to dig him out. “But the way I came in is blocked up now.”

“Quiznack.” That came from Allura, sounding almost as frustrated as Keith felt. “We’ll have to move all of this stone to get down to you. It will take some time.” 

Keith turned and considered his options. Sit in the same place for the next few hours as the Lions excavated the entire hillside, or wander further in searching for another exit, possibly finding the ore they were searching for in the process. 

It was a no-brainer. 

“I’m gonna take a look around, see if I can find the metal or another way out.” 

“That doesn’t sound like a good idea,” said Hunk, the sound of Yellow’s motions coming through his comms with his voice. “It’s super easy to get lost in caves! What if we move the wrong rock and the whole system collapses?”

“That’s not gonna stop him,” said Lance. 

As much as he hated to admit it, Lance was right about that, and judging by his exasperated tone, Shiro knew it, too.

“Just be careful. Try to stay within signal range if you can.”

“Ten-four,” Keith said, but he already knew he wouldn’t be able to fulfill that last part; not that he was as concerned about it as the others seemed to be. He was familiar with caves, and if worst came to worst, the others could get a sonic map with Blue and come track him down. They had the technology. 

So he left the remains of the spiral corridor and went back to his original target, the pathway opposite. He had to move rather carefully to avoid stepping on all the little stalagmites, but when he got there it seemed the effort was wasted-- the dark hollow he’d seen as a hallway was actually just a shadow filled indentation in the wall. 

He went to the one on the right wall next. This one was slightly deeper than the first, but was still a dead end. On the wall was that symbol again, the circle with the diamond and the triangle. This one was far less ornate than the one on the large wall had been, with shaky lines hastily carved into the rock with something that wasn’t meant for the job-- maybe a knife. 

Keith frowned and activated his mic. 

* * *

“Hey, can someone give Coran a mic?” 

The voice from Pidge’s helmet was a little impeded by static and a few abrupt cut offs, but she could still understand. Though what Keith wanted Coran for, she couldn’t guess. 

“Yeah, hold on,” she said. She pulled her helmet off and set it down on a nearby tree stump. “Hey, Coran! Keith wants to talk to you.”

Coran left Shiro and Allura where they were supervising Hunk’s excavation to join her. If she cranked the volume of the comms all the way up, Coran should be able to hear Keith’s voice, and by fiddling with a few settings, she extended the range of the mic, too. “Ok, he’s here, what did you need?”

“I was wondering about the symbol that was on the big wall,” Keith explained. “I just found another one carved into a wall down here, too. Do you know what it means?”

“Hm, just a moment, my boy.” Coran said before hurrying away, probably to find the wall chunk that had the symbol in question on it. 

Pidge waited until he was out of earshot, then said, “What is it with you and cave hieroglyphics?”

Keith laughed, though the mic dropped off in the middle of it, and didn’t come back until he started talking in words again. “This is only the second time I’ve found any.”

“Yeah, but it’s weird that it happened twice.”

Another laugh, and then Coran returned with a puzzled expression. 

“Well, I studied the symbol,” he said into the mic, stroking his mustache thoughtfully. “I don’t think it’s a word or phrase. I believe it’s a charm of some sort-- the Ahkteurians had many different rituals and amulets to protect themselves from the creatures they believed to exist. I’ve never seen this particular one on any artifacts, but if I had to make a guess, I’d say it’s a symbol of protection against something in the cave.”

“Great,” said Keith dryly. “Wards against the cave ghost.”

“It’s probably similar to the curses written on Egyptian tombs,” Pidge added. “I doubt there’s actually anything in there.”   
“Hm.” It was just a hum, but something in Keith’s voice sounded… distracted. Like something had caught his attention. “Thanks, Coran.” 

“Any time, lad.” There was a beep, indicating that Keith had muted his mic again, and Coran walked off to rejoin the others. 

Pidge stayed where she was. The others didn’t necessarily  _ need  _ her right then-- the excavating was mostly a Hunk and Yellow job-- so she probably had some free time to do some research on the planet. 

_ Just in general,  _ she told herself as she opened the Castle database from her gauntlet.  _ Just to keep myself busy.  _

She didn’t believe in ghosts or monsters. But the mythology of other cultures could be fascinating-- especially alien cultures. Just something to hold her attention for the next few hours. 

Just for fun. 

* * *

Keith thought about Coran’s translation as he walked. 

The third corridor had proved more promising than the other two, in that it was an actual corridor that seemed to go somewhere. The ground was sloping down, instead of up like Keith would’ve hoped, but at least he wasn’t stuck in that one tiny room. That probably would’ve driven him crazy. 

The hall was nothing special. Wide enough and tall enough for him to walk comfortably, a few rock formations on either side, only a few twists and turns, and so far no other paths branching off of it. It was the best case scenario in cave exploration; he should’ve been relaxed, but for a reason Keith himself couldn’t fathom, he was anything but. 

Ever since that conversation with Coran, Keith’s muscles had been tense. There was an uncomfortable prickling over his back and neck, like that feeling you get when you’re being watched. So far he’d resisted the urge to look over his shoulder, but it was getting harder the further he traveled into the cave, which was, quite frankly, ridiculous.

He wasn’t afraid of the dark. He wasn’t afraid of caves. So why did he feel like a little kid, sprinting to bed after clicking off the lights so that the monsters didn’t get him? The only thing he could come up with was Coran’s explanation, but he wasn’t usually that easily freaked out. 

Overall, it was weird. So he endeavored to ignore it, which got much easier when he came around a bend and found himself at another four way crossroad. 

Keith switched on his comms and paused to listen, but he must’ve gone out of signal range, because all he could hear was static. For a moment he hesitated, remembering what Shiro had said, but getting back in range would mean going back down the corridor to the small room and staying there, and when he thought about turning around the prickling on the back of his neck just got worse. 

So he kept going straight, telling himself that the weird feeling he was getting was just his restlessness flaring up again. He almost believed it, too. Until he came to another crossroads, this one with no tunnel continuing forward. He chose the right tunnel to follow first, and as he was turning let his eyes dart back down the way he had come. After all, the cave could very well be the home to some carnivorous alien beast.

But he didn’t see anything. Just darkness; darkness so deep it seemed to swallow the beam of his suit light. 

Keith’s stomach twisted, but he forced himself to focus on the tunnel in front of him, not the one behind. The risk of dangerous aliens was a real one, but he hadn’t heard or seen any evidence of them yet, and even though he was used to trusting his instincts, that didn’t mean he could freak out about nothing. 

The floor of this new tunnel sloped ever so slightly upwards. Promising, but it merely came to another dead end, once again marked by a messy rendition of the warding sigil. 

Keith forced himself to turn around without hesitating. Almost immediately his stomach started doing somersaults, and surrounded by the empty walls he could hear his breathing beginning to come faster, all at the sight of a dark tunnel that he’d literally just come from. 

He let out a slow exhale. “Come on, Kogane,” he whispered aloud, even that deafening in the ear-ringing silence. “Keep it together.” After another moment of slow breathing, he tried his comms again. 

“Guys? Can anybody hear me?”

For a few seconds there was just more static. Then, ever so distantly, he picked out the word, “... here.” 

He gulped and spoke slowly, trying to make himself as understandable as possible. “How’s it going up there? How far do you think you are?”

Nothing. There were some garbled noises that could’ve been words, but also could have not been. After a few seconds of frustrated listening, Keith turned the comms off again. He would have to get higher to get a good signal, it seemed, which meant more exploring-- the idea of going back the way he came was dismissed almost before he processed it-- which meant going back down this tunnel so that he could get to the left one. 

Cold sweat rolled down his spine, and Keith shook himself. It was just a corridor. There was nothing there. Christ. Pressing his lips into a thin line, he took a step, then another. Some of the anxiety eased as he started moving forward again, but the watched feeling didn’t leave or even change. It still felt like eyes boring into his back, like the darkness itself was gathering, hovering behind him, but Keith refused to lend it credence. 

He wasn’t scared. He was  _ fine,  _ goddamnit. 

With that thought to bolster him, Keith traveled further into the cave. 

* * *

“Do you think Keith’s alright?” Surprisingly enough, it was Allura who asked the question. Despite all of the static and glitching from the radio, the tinge of anxiety in Keith’s voice during their last conversation was obvious enough that even she noticed it-- which meant that Shiro definitely noticed it, too. Though to be fair, Shiro had been concerned about this situation from the get-go. 

“He’ll be fine,” said Lance with a dismissive gesture. “He’s probably just playing a prank on us, trying to get us all riled up for nothing.”

“No,” said Pidge, rolling her eyes. “That’s what you would do.”

“Yeah, and?”

Shiro sighed and stepped into the conversation. “If there’s anything dangerous down there, Keith can handle himself. All we can do is keep digging and hope we get down there soon.”

“It would probably be faster with more Lions,” Hunk chimed in over the comms. “I know I’m supposed to be the Earth one, but the others can still, like, lift rocks and stuff, right?”

Shiro nodded to himself as he answered. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. Lance--” 

Lance groaned, already knowing what was coming. Shiro pressed on regardless. 

“Why don’t you hop in Blue and start helping out. If it’s still taking too long one of you can fly me and Pidge back to the Castle to get Green and Black.”

Lance obeyed the order, but grumbled to himself the whole way. Something about having to clean up Keith’s messes. Shiro was tempted to roll his eyes like Pidge, but he was the leader. He had to be more composed than that. 

“Number Two?” 

Shiro turned to find Coran standing behind him. He’d spent the last varga or so staring at the remains of the two crumbled pillars, trying to translate more of the hieroglyphs. For what purpose Shiro couldn’t say, but it’s not like he had anything better to do. 

“What is it?”

Coran cleared his throat. He seemed significantly more somber since that morning, and didn’t fidget with his mustache or his gloves as he normally did when he spoke. 

“Number Four’s question about the symbol made me curious, so I’ve been trying to translate more of those pillars that we knocked down. So far, it seems to be a standard fable about a person who wandered into the caverns and became trapped. In this particular one, the time spent in the dark seemed to transform them into a malevolent spirit; the cavewalker from the beginning of the story, I believe.”

Shiro nodded along politely. Honestly, he didn’t particularly care about Coran’s amateur anthropology, but it’s not like telling him that would help anything. Coran continued, unperturbed by Shiro’s lack of enthusiasm. 

“This spirit is blamed for the deaths of most other people who tried to explore the caves. The locals avoided it of course, but in the second half of the story, it says that on certain days of the year, the cavewalker could leave the caverns and tempt people to return with it. The wall we destroyed was built to seal the spirit inside so that it could no longer do so.”

“Right,” said Shiro. Coran raised his eyebrows expectantly. “... And?”

“I haven’t finished the entire translation, but it may be pertinent to whatever Keith is experiencing down there.”

Shiro barely bit back his sigh. “It’s just a legend, Coran. Keith will be fine.”

“You’re probably right,” Coran conceded. “But it’s worth remembering that to most of the universe, Voltron is just a legend, too.” He gave Shiro a meaningful look, then turned and ambled back over to the remains of the pillars. 

This time Shiro let out the sigh. This whole thing was stressful enough-- he didn’t need to be worrying about ghosts and monsters, too. 

Maybe he would go back to the Castle for Black, after all. 

* * *

The left corridor went on for a long time. Periodically Keith would turn his comms on to test, but every time they were just as unusable as before, so he’d turn them off again and keep walking. The prickling on his back hadn’t faded. If anything it had gotten worse, and Keith was practically vibrating with pent up adrenaline that he refused to let out. If he started acting like a scared little kid he’d never live it down. 

So he kept his hands clenched into fists to stop the shaking and pushed ever forwards. 

He had no idea how long he’d been down there. Long enough for him to get worryingly thirsty, but just with all of the other weird sensations, Keith tried his best to ignore it. He shouldn’t waste his energy worrying about something like that, when surely the others would be finished digging him out any minute. 

He just had to keep going. He had his goal: find a place where the comms worked even a little bit and stay there. Going back wasn’t an option-- even the thought of it made him feel nauseous with nerves. His instincts were screaming at him, and he couldn’t resist them on all fronts; something had to give, and if not going back to the start was the price for keeping his cool, he would gladly pay it. 

Eventually he came upon yet another intersection, and Keith nearly screamed in frustration. His head ached from dehydration, his feet were killing him, and all he was finding was more goddamn tunnels. This one formed a T, paths branching from his to the right and the left. Directly across from him was another one of those warding symbols.

He didn’t want to stop moving, but in this battle, his exhaustion outweighed the strange dread that he’d been carrying. Crossing the room, Keith settled down underneath the symbol, letting out a great, heaving sigh. He crossed his arms over his knees and put his head down; this way he wouldn’t have to stare into the shadows of any of the tunnels, but that did little for the anxiety. He could still feel it watching, like the darkness itself was a predator stalking its prey. 

Maybe there was something in the air. Some strange alien gas being secreted that he couldn’t sense but was messing with his head. Back on Earth carbon monoxide could make you feel like you were being haunted, make you think you saw ghosts-- maybe the same thing was happening here. Whatever it was, it wasn’t real. He just had to keep reminding himself that. 

From one of the side tunnels came a sudden burst of cold air, making Keith jump. Wind was common in caves, but he hadn’t felt any the whole time he’d been down there, and it was frigid like an arctic lake. 

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. The wind blew again, but this time the sound of it moving against the stone was loud and harsh, like a huffed breath right in his ear, and when he saw something in the shadows of his periphery move, his control over his body snapped. 

Keith skittered to his feet and set off down the right hand tunnel. He wasn’t running, not quite, but he was speed walking, trying to keep ahead of the cold front that he could feel pursuing him. Half out of desperation, he tried his comms again. 

“Hello? Can anybody hear me? Somebody answer me, please.” He’d be embarrassed about how he sounded later, for sure, but at the moment he didn’t care. 

Nothing. Keith swore, and after another moment’s hesitation, gave into the urge to run. 

The cold kept right on his heels. The wind was blowing ever louder, roaring past him; was it just him, or was his fleshlight getting dimmer? 

Keith ground his teeth. This was so  _ stupid--  _ running from something he couldn’t even see, something that probably wasn’t even there to begin with. In seconds the shame ignited into rage; Keith stopped running, dug his heels in as he slid to a stop in the loose dust, and as he turned summoned his bayard to his hand. 

If there was an alien beast coming to kill him, fine. But he absolutely fucking refused to be prey. 

At first glance there didn’t appear to be anything chasing him, just the usual dark corridor. Then the cold hit his face, making his breath hitch, and somehow the roar of the wind went around him. He could track the sound as it went past his left ear and curved behind him to go past the other, and that was when he realized it wasn’t the wind at all. 

And it wasn’t just him. His flashlight  _ was  _ dimmer, because it was streaming right into a cloud of shadows, coalescing darkness that was somehow even darker than the normal lack of light underground. 

With a shout, Keith swung his bayard at the approaching cloud. Once, twice, three times, but it never made contact with anything, and the cold was wrapping around him, burning his skin with its intensity. 

It wasn’t doing anything. His bayard wouldn’t hurt whatever the hell this thing was. He couldn’t fight back, and Keith felt sick. 

With no other option, he spun on his heel and took off running again. 

* * *

“Did you guys hear that?” Lance sounded unnerved, and Shiro couldn’t blame him. The note of fear in Keith’s voice made his stomach drop out through his feet, and the fact that he couldn’t seem to hear any of them talking through the static only made the trepidation build that much faster. 

“Keep digging,” he instructed. All four of them were now in their Lions, and with the extra help they were making some visible progress, but suddenly it felt like not nearly enough.  _ Something  _ was happening to Keith down there, and based purely on his voice, it was definitely not a good thing. “Lance, get that sonic map with Blue and send it to Pidge.”

“Roger that,” Lance said, and Shiro didn’t say anything about the slight tremor in his voice. 

Before Shiro could return to digging there was a ding over the comms, and Coran’s face popped up on the comm channel on Black’s dashboard. Judging by the grim look on his face, it wasn’t good news. 

“I finished translating the second pillar,” he said. “It seems the Ahkteurians didn’t just leave this cavewalker creature to its own devices. They used it as a method of execution, sending their worst criminals below to be, in their words, devoured.”

Shiro’s blood ran cold. Maybe whatever was going on with Keith had nothing to do with the legend, nothing supernatural at all, but hell. The evil space Emperor had an evil space witch who threw lightning with her hands. Anything was possible. 

“According to some other carvings I found in the rubble, it seems some of the condemned tried to save themselves by drawing that warding symbol on the walls, but at a smaller size it doesn’t last nearly as long, and the records confirm that, at least at the time of their civilization, there were no other exits in the cavern system.”

_ Well, shit.  _

“Shit,” Pidge hissed out loud. “This cannot be happening. Ghosts aren’t  _ real. _ ”

“Ghost or not,” Shiro said, clenching his hands tighter around Black’s controls. “We need to get Keith out of there.”

“I’m gonna do the sonic now,” said Lance. “Then we’ll know how much farther we need to get before we hit the caves.”

“Good. Get it done.” Shiro turned his attention back to the digging with renewed energy. 

He hoped they weren’t too late. 

* * *

Keith ran for as long as he could. Eventually the pain in his sides and legs and lungs forced him to stop and crumble to his knees, doubled over as he struggled to suck in enough air to fuel the light speed pace of his heart. 

The darkness and cold was further behind him now. Further behind, but not gone-- he could still feel it coming. Hunting, and it was still coming fast. 

Keith cast a frantic gaze around him as the dread welled ever higher in his chest. He had no idea where he was anymore, but it didn’t matter. There was one of those symbols on the wall ahead of him, the one Coran said was for protection. Maybe it still worked. 

After dragging himself to his feet, Keith staggered over to the wall and slid back down into a kneel. The symbol was right at eye level, like the person who had carved it was in the same position he was. 

The thing, whatever it was, was getting closer. The roar was beginning to build again, coming down the corridor at him like a train whistle. He ran his fingers over the symbol again and again, trying to figure out how to tell if it would help him or not; it took thirty bone-chilling seconds before he realized that it hadn’t been completed. The circle hadn’t been joined at the top, like the carver had given up right at the very end. 

_ Probably not given up,  _ Keith thought somewhat hysterically as he fumbled for his knife. He wasn’t the first to be hunted by the cavewalker. 

It was almost on top of him again. Jamming the point of the knife into the carving, Keith slammed his full weight against the hilt until the last chunk of stone broke free. Instantly the sigil began to glow green, and barely a few feet behind him the creature roared in rage. 

Keith collapsed against the wall, chest heaving. The cloud of black hovered in the air, rippling in agitation, but it didn’t repeat its howl, and after a few seconds it began to dissipate. He wasn’t stupid enough to think it would be gone forever, but he didn’t need it to be. He just had to hold out until the others came. 

Jesus. That’s what it had to be, right? The cavewalker? Even if it wasn’t, what did it matter? So long as the ward kept him safe, it didn’t matter what the damn thing was called. 

Keith’s throat burned, his sides burned, his eyes burned-- everything burned. The adrenaline scorching through his veins was beginning to subside, and as it did it left lead behind. His eyelids sagged. He wanted to rest, just for a few minutes, just a little reprieve, but he knew he couldn’t. He had to keep his guard up, just in case. 

Despite his resolve, he must’ve fallen asleep for a few minutes; one second things were calm, the green glow of the sigil a soothing contrast to the white of his flashlight. Then he blinked, and the next second the sigil was dead and dark, and the cavewalker was howling as it charged down the corridor at him. 

The adrenaline slammed into him like a semi truck. Keith scrambled to his feet and took off down a random corridor, not knowing or caring which one it was or where he was going, he just had to get  _ away.  _

Before it had seemed like he was able to outrun it. But it was pissed this time, and it kept right on his heels no matter how hard Keith pushed himself. He felt the first brush of the cold as he swung around a corner, and as he ran it spread, crawling with just the slightest pressure to accompany the pain. 

Keith kept running. He charged through another large room, did a hairpin turn into a hallway to the right, danced between dozens of little stalagmites; and still the cold grew, the howls of the creature drowning out even the sound of his blood rushing in his ears. 

“No, no, no.” It was a waste of breath to speak, and he was rapidly running out. The cold was stealing the air from his lungs. Within seconds he was gasping, and the halls he ran through just kept getting darker. Was it his flashlight or is vision? He couldn’t tell-- all he knew was that he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, and purely on reflex he yanked his helmet off of his head and cast it aside. 

It didn’t help. There was no air no matter how hard he tried to breathe it in, and the darkness was so complete that he didn’t realize he’d been running down a dead end until he slammed into the wall.

Keith fell to the floor, dazed and confused. He could feel where the floor became the wall against his back, and the force and malice of the cavewalker as it descended on him, but everything else was lost to the fear. 

He had no idea what the thing was going to do to him. Yet he was still surprised when it stabbed him, right through the gut . If he’d had the air he would’ve screamed at the sudden burst of pain, but all he could do was gasp like a fish out of water, and in the back of his mind feel grateful for the blood that poured out, because at least it was warm. 

Wait. Blood. 

The cavewalker settled over his body. He could feel its weight as the chill invaded, pressing even more deeply into him, but there was nothing about it that was physical enough to keep him from raising a hand and smearing his fingers through the blood.

It might not work. He was going to be doing it blind and backwards, groping in the dark while this thing consumed him, and the blood might smear too much for the sigil to work. But he had to  _ try.  _

The ground he lay on shifted. Keith barely noticed, focused as he was on his bloody fingerpainting and the pain of being eaten alive. 

Then he died. He must have. It was the only thing that could explain the blinding white light that filled the tunnel, or the strange roar he heard that answered the cavewalkers howl, or the painful way it tore itself out of his body. The sudden light wasn’t any easier to see in than the darkness-- in his last moments of consciousness, he assumed the blurry figures coming towards him were agents of whatever afterlife he was slated for. 

Keith let the light take him. 

* * *

It took three days for the pod to fix all of the damage from the creature in the cave. Shiro haunted the infirmary that entire time, trying and failing to quash the guilt. He knew it wasn’t his fault, the others had reminded him over and over again:  _ Keith went in there on his own, he decided to go wandering, there’s nothing you could have done to stop him;  _ but it didn’t help. Their words couldn’t erase the image of Keith laying bloody and unconscious, one arm still stretched above his head as he tried to scrawl the warding sigil in blood.

When he was finally healed, Coran didn’t want to let him out of the pod normally. 

“He lost consciousness in the midst of a very traumatic event,” he’d said to them all when they gathered to Keith’s release. “We need to be gentle.”

That was how Shiro found himself as the only person in the room, sitting next to a cot and waiting for the sedative Keith had been given to wear off. It wasn’t the first time Keith had been injured, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last, but Shiro would never get used to seeing his face so still-- like it had been in the cave. 

Keith woke gradually. First with small movements, a few mumbled noises, a moment or two of open eyes before they closed again. Shiro only knew when he returned to full consciousness when his entire body went stiff. 

“Hey,” he said, but not quickly enough to stop Keith from trying to bolt out of the bed. Luckily Keith was still groggy from the sedative, so it wasn’t too difficult to grab his arms and pull him back down. “Hey, hey, it's ok, it's just me.” 

Keith struggled for a few seconds more before realizing who was holding him. He blinked fast, like he couldn’t quite believe it, slumped in relief-- only for his eyes to blow wide with panic again. 

“Where is it?” he choked out, trying to scramble upright against Shiro’s hold. “Where is it, where did it go?”

“Hey, no, no.” Shiro moved from his chair to the cot, making it easier for him to gather Keith up and hold him to his chest. “Keith, listen, just listen to me. It’s gone. It’s over now. You’re ok. You’re safe.”

Keith’s eyes flicked around. Then, softly, “I’m alive?”

For some reason, that made Shiro chuckle, just a little. 

“Yeah. You’re alive.” 


End file.
